Re: Hello All!!

From: "william drewery" <will65610@...>

> Howdy,
You're not from Texas are ya? ;)

>     I just joined the conlang list, and first I would
> like to thank all of you for making this available.
> I'm hoping this will be quite an enriching experience.
>     Well, I've been working on a language for about a
> few months now that is nearly finished grammatically,
> but I still need the lexicon. It's a polysynthetic
> language with a very harsh and gutteral phonemic
> inventory inspired by Klingon (in fact, it contains
> virtually every sound in Klingon, and then some). I've
> been contemplating rounding it out with the addition
> of some epiglottal fricatives, but I have no idea how
> to pronounce these. They are found in Agul and other
> languages of the Caucuses, where they contrast with
> both uvular and pharyngeal fricatives. From what I
> understand, they are generated by closing the
> epiglottis and trilling the aryetenoid cartliges
> against the epiglottal base while laterally releasing
> air from the epiglottis. I was hoping someone out
> there might have some pointers for the pronunciation
> of these sounds. I never could master pharyngeal
> fricatives untill somone told me to "grunt while
> constricting your Adam's Apple". Thanks for your help.
Well welcome to the list... epiglottals just happen to be the only
consonants I can't seem to pronounce without great difficulty, and I'm
probably not even doing that right. Even my far-from-complete Tech (which
has the glottal stop, the voiceless and voiced glottal and pharyngeal
fricatives, and even a voiceless ejective pharyngeal fricative!) doesn't
have epiglottals. That would be most like a "grunt while constricting one's
Adam's Apple", though the pharynx is noticeably above the larynx.

I had to figure out pharyngeals out by myself while listening to spoken
Arabic. I kept in mind a position between uvular and glottal. I finally
figured out how to tighten up the sides of my upper throat region and
produce a sound more "raspy" and less "rough" than the uvular fricatives of
German Ch and R.

And where can I find a phonological description of Agul and any natlang with
epiglottals? I wanna see!

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